For now, the details are scarce. In December, Madonna wrote on Facebook that she "officially" needed to "make new music". "I need to move," she wrote. "I need to sweat ... I'm on the lookout for the maddest, sickest, most badass people to collaborate with. I'm just saying." Yesterday, her manager made the official even more official: "Madonna goes into the recording studio next month to begin work on new album," Guy Oseary wrote on Twitter. "She has a good idea of which producers she will be working with ... [There are] lots of questions about what kind of music it will be ... stay tuned."

This is welcome news after comments early last year, when Madonna said she didn't have "the time or energy" for her music career. She has instead been busy with parenting, as well as directing her second feature film, a romance called WE. "I don't [even] have a record deal right now," she told Interview magazine. "I don't know how I'm going to get my music out the next time I make a record. I'm going to have to reinvent the wheel."